The fifth time Harold Jones drove from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Kansas, he wasn’t headed for public land or to hunt with an outfitter. He’d done each twice, so he was looking forward to christening a new lease of his own.
Harold took an unconventional approach to acquiring the property he, son Brandon and two friends would hunt in 2019. He gained access to 700 unseen acres by bidding online.
Most of the acreage was in soybeans and pasture, half a mile north of a major river. Only about 100 acres were timbered, and a creek dissected the block. In theory, it was the perfect habitat for farm-country whitetails.
Bow season was already underway when the four guys visited the property in mid-October, the first time any of them had step foot on it. Impressed with the plentiful sign in the tract, they put up several treestands.
Brandon arrowed a nice buck on their third day.
Hip surgery grounded Harold when he returned to Kansas in November. He and his son erected a blind beside the very tree Brandon climbed to shoot his deer in October. It’s a good spot, and they saw several bucks.
It helped that they’d dumped a gallon of corn on a trail where Brandon had seen lots of whitetails previously.
“Between 7:00 and 8 a.m., I passed on an 11-pointer that would have scored about 150 inches and a 130-inch 9 pointer because my son kept saying, ‘Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,’” Harold told John Phillips, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “If we’d been at home in Louisiana, I’d have taken either buck in a heartbeat and been very happy.”
Toward 9:00, they spotted the buck they’d nicknamed Triple Towers – a nod to what they thought were three beams. The giant was heading straight for them.
“I readied my Ravin crossbow, aimed and heard Brandon grunt. When the deer stopped at 20 yards, quartering away from me, I squeezed the trigger,” Harold said.
The shot wasn’t optimal, but the crew found the coyote-ravaged buck 20 yards from the creekbank after lunch on Wednesday, Nov. 6.
Not to worry, though. Arma, Kansas, taxidermist Blake VanLeeuwen found a new cape for Harold’s 200-plus-inch pride and joy.
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